Selecting Hashrate

Shield provides direct access to Bitcoin mining pools. Understanding hashrate coverage helps you choose the right fee tier for your confirmation needs.

Hashrate Coverage

The estimated_hashrate value returned by the /info endpoint represents the approximate percentage of the Bitcoin network hashrate that will accept your transaction at a specific fee rate.

For example:

• 0.65 means approximately 65% of Bitcoin's mining power will consider your transaction
• 0.95 means approximately 95% of Bitcoin's mining power will consider your transaction

Interpreting Hashrate Coverage

Hashrate Coverage	Expected Outcome
50% or less	Transaction may take many blocks to confirm (potentially days)
50-70%	Transaction may confirm within several hours
70-90%	Transaction likely to confirm within a few hours
90% or more	Transaction likely to confirm in the next few blocks

Block Time Variability

Bitcoin blocks are found approximately every 10 minutes on average, but individual block times can vary significantly:

• Some blocks may be found within seconds of each other
• Other times, it might take 30+ minutes to find a block

This natural variability means that even with high hashrate coverage, confirmation times can never be guaranteed precisely.

Mining Pool Selection

Shield works with multiple mining pools, each with its own policies:

• Pools may include or exclude transactions at their own discretion
• Certain pools may have minimum feerate requirements
• Pool hashrate share fluctuates over time
• Not all pools support RBF and CPFP

Shield automatically handles routing your transaction to appropriate pools based on your fee rate.

Transaction Replacement

If your transaction is taking too long to confirm, you may want to replace it with a higher-fee version:

• You can only replace a transaction if it signals Replace-by-Fee (RBF)
• The replacement transaction must pay a higher fee than the original
• You'll need to create and sign a completely new transaction

Shield does not currently offer a direct replacement API — submit the new transaction as a separate request.

Confirmation Strategies

Time-Critical Transactions

• Use the highest fee rate option
• Monitor for confirmation and be prepared with a higher-fee replacement

Cost-Sensitive Transactions

• Use a moderate fee rate (70-80% hashrate coverage)
• Accept that confirmation may take several hours

Lowest Cost

• Use the minimum fee rate accepted by Shield
• Understand that confirmation could take 24+ hours

Monitoring Your Transaction

After submission, you can monitor your transaction status:

• Use a block explorer to check for confirmation (once mined)
• Your transaction will not appear in mempool explorers until confirmed (since it bypassed the public mempool)